Perez denied involvement in the case. His attorney, Mark Di Carlo, said he and Perez don't plan to appeal the ruling but were "very disappointed"

At a detention hearing, it was made apparent that Perez had broken into the mosque about a week before he set it on fire, The AP reported then. At the time, federal investigators said there was no immediate evidence that the fire was a hate crime.

Marq Vincent Perez was escorted from the federal courthouse in Victoria in January 2018 after a pretrial hearing in the torching of a mosque in 2017. Prosecutors say Perez made plans to create a "rogue unit" to monitor and possibly confront Muslims at the Islamic center. Monday, he was convicted of federal arson and explosives charges and of a hate crime charge.

(Evan Lewis/The Associated Press)

However, in denying bond for Perez then, U.S. Magistrate Judge B. Janice Ellington said that testimony of Perez's involvement in a hate crime was still "being investigated."

The judge said then that "his possession and use of an unregistered destructive device ... and his possession of loaded firearms out in the open in his home with an infant and a toddler living at the same home demonstrate that he represents a serious danger to the community," The AP reported.